The Lloyd V. Berkner Award was established to honor this distinguished scientist and research administrator. He started his professional career as an engineer in charge of a radio station in Minneapolis. Several years later he was weatherman on Admiral Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition. He later was instrumental in promoting the international geophysical year and was the first president of the Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He established the Southwest Research Institute in Dallas, Texas, and promoted that organization’s activities in research. Lloyd Berkner was the motivating force behind the 1967 AAS Meeting in Dallas on the Commercial Utilization of Space and Space Technology. In his summary of that meeting he said “How far we have come in the last ten years. Now the job of entrepreneur is to combine technology, to create a market and to find customers – because in many cases altogether new industries have to be conceived and created.”

In recognition of Lloyd Berkner’s vision and anticipation of the usefulness of space technology, the award was conferred in his name in recognition of outstanding contributions to the commercial utilization of space technology.